There are few people who do not at some point want to be the life of the party. There are even fewer who want to be the final dregs hanging on after last call is announced, “Closing Time” played, and the lights flipped on. Peter, Jordan Firstman’s hard-living and self-styled party promoter, is well past both points in a debut feature that the actor also wrote and directed. During an absolutely delirious opening sequence set in 2016, Peter is seen dancing by himself, unaware when things need to wind down… particularly following a threesome in the back of the club.
There’s, perhaps, a metaphor in this about a generation who can relate all too well when an insert card says, “A Deacde-ish Later,” and Peter is depicted still hitting the clubs as the oldest guy in the room, wondering aloud if anyone else feels like they lost grip on the last 10 years sometime yesterday. And there certainly could’ve been another, sobering A24 drama about millennial ennui and the despair of arrested-development malaise .
Fortunately, Club Kid is not that movie. It is, in fact, a simpler and therefore altogether rarer magic trick in the world of modern indie cinema: here is a pure, unapologetic crowdpleaser, a happy-go-lucky dramedy that is as charming as anything you will see this fall, and a movie that could not unfairly be called queer arthouse Big Daddy. That is to say while leaning in some degree of formula and feel-good (read: Hollywood) storytelling, Firstman has crafted an irresistibly sweet and sincere character study about a middle-aged man forced to finally grow up when a son he didn’t know about shows up at the door of his SoHo loft. (Recall that threesome I mentioned earlier? It turns out the otherwise gay Peter partied a little too hard that night.)
This is how Arlo (a precious and natural Reggie Absolom) enters the picture. Quiet, awkward, and angel-faced behind a polite English accent, Arlo is actually in the care of Edison (Kirby Howell-Baptiste, stealing scenes). In the same sequence Arlo and Edison enter the picture, the latter reveals she’s a friend of the boy’s mother, who died by suicide a few weeks ago. Apparently his stepfather is a piece of work, and Edison has the birth certificate to prove the paternity, which she’ll get around to showing Peter, but first can he offer her a bump of coke? For the jitters, y’know? Also if he doesn’t want to be a father, she totally gets it, and she’ll take Arlo back to the UK momentarily. Just let her go out and run a few errands this afternoon and….
